Start of June's meal plan

First of all I can't believe that we are in June! This year has flown by. For those of you who read my last post you would know that my husband has deployed but I have a friend staying with me so my meal plans are still for two people.

5th spaghetti bolognase and salad
6th pasta bake
7th beef and broccoli
8th our for lunch so most likely something simply like leftovers or omelettes
9th I'm at a wedding and my friend is eating at her parents
10th chicken curry
11th sweet and sour chicken
12th beef stir fry
13th and 14th my friend is away so I haven't planned any meals yet this weekend
15th sweet and sour chicken
16th tacos
17th Mac and cheese
18th omelettes
19th stir fry
20th pasta bake

After this I am off work for a week so I haven't meal planned as I am unsure of what my plans will be. Since being pregnant I'm more content with simply food such as scrambled eggs on toast or soup so even though I plan evening meals I don't always eat a huge amount of it.

Have you done any weekly or monthly meal plans yet? Let me know what your eating this month.

Claire

Paleo meal ideas

After we are back from our trip we are considering going paleo-ish. I've been looking online and through my collection of cookbooks. I thought I would share with you the list I have come up with.

• Egg muffins
• Chicken curry and cauliflower rice
• Cauliflower based pizza
• Roast and veggies
• Meatballs and  courgette spaghetti
• Kebabs
• Lettuce wraps
• Stuffed mushrooms
• Stuffed peppers
• Baked sweet potatoes chips and mash 
• Chilli
• Taco salad
• Chicken soup
• Stir fry veggies and cauliflower rice
• Burgers in mushroom buns 
• Fruit salad

Do you have any favourite paleo meals?

Claire 

Sainsburys top up shop.

After my meal plan I said that we had £135.79 left in our budget but that we needed a couple things for this week. Today I brought eggs, gluten free flour, chocolate, maple syrup and some crusty rolls for my husband.

This shop came to £7.01 so we have £128.78 left. How's your food budget going this month?
Claire

Meal plan 16th February - 8th March

So after meaning to do a new meal plan for about a week I finally ticked it off my list tonight. This time I've done a three week meal plan which takes us up until we go away. Our cupboards are still pretty full after our tesco shop and I'm hoping we have enough meat to last us the next three weeks. There is currently only one night I'm out so I have planned a meal for most nights.

16 beef stew with salad on the side
17 salad and stuffed peppers
18 I'm out. My husband will have fish
19 chicken quarters and veg
20 chicken or veggie pasta
21 gammon steaks with pineapple and homemade chips
22 I have some mince. I'm thinking of doing either lasagne or spaghetti bolognese.

23 whole chicken in the slow cooker with veg
24 egg fried rice with leftover chicken
25 pasta with leftover chicken
26 pork chops
27 omelettes
28 homemade quiche
1 leftovers


2 chicken quarters and veg
3 something with chicken breasts
4 quinoa burgers
5 chicken pasta with leftover chicken
6 omelettes and salad
7 veggie curry
8 leftovers


I've figured this week I will need to buy eggs and gluten free flour to make a batch of Yorkshire puddings with but hoping that I may be able to have a week spending very little. I'm planning on spending no more than £150 again this month and will take what we don't spend as spending money for our week away. Deducting £14.21 from our tesco shop we have £135.79. What's on your meal plan this week? Claire

Last weeks food

Here are a few pictures of some of our meals from last week.

What did you eat this week? Have you done a meal plan?

Meal plan 12/01/15

We kept to our meal plan last week fairly well which I'm happy about. We are planned on stacking our food challenges so again this week we will be trying to add two servings of fruit or veg at each meal.

This is our meal plan for this week:

For breakfast I plan on making a batch of egg muffins and Slow cooker porridge. As we both work early mornings this really helps us when I'm organised as we won't grab anything unhealthy.

Lunches again tends to be pretty random. If we have leftovers we will have them. Alternatively I have some chicken stock from yesterday's roast chicken so I may make soup.

• Monday - we have friends over for dinner so will be doing a big sausage casserole or pasta bake with salad. I think we will have a dessert this day but I'm not sure what yet. 
• Tuesday - homemade chicken nuggets and chips with frozen veg mix
• Wednesday - I had eggplant Parmesan on the menu but it didn't arrive on my online shop so I may improvise with what we already have indoors and change this
• Thursday - leftovers. I'm hoping there will be some leftovers this week. 
• Friday - quinoa veggie burgers. This is a new recipe I'm trying and looking forward to it. 
• Saturday - basil pork chops and veg
• Sunday - slow cooker roast chicken. 

What are you having this week? 

Week 1 of real food mini challenge review

I would say that our first week of Real food mini pledges has been successful. There was only one dinner that we didn't have two servings of either fruit or veg. We also stuck to our Meal plan fairly well.

Breakfast was probably the easiest as we tend to have eggs with peppers, spinach and mushrooms or porridge with a fruit cooked in and one on the side.

Lunches most days were leftovers which we added more fruit or veg too. We also enjoy doing lunch picnic style when we are both in.

The only meal we didn't have was tacos. The mince I had brought unfortunately went bad before it's best before so we improvised and added some veggies and leftover chicken to rice which you can see below.

We've also been using fruit as a dessert. I have a real sweet tooth so I have been trying to cut back in preparation for some of the other weeks,

Here are some pictures of some of our meals this week.

How did you do this week?

Weekly food shop at aldi - including organic

Today I did a weekly food shop in preparation of our 100 days of real food mini pledges that starts today. The challenge this week is to eat two pieces of fruit or veg at each meal. We were lucky enough to receive a voucher for a local farm shop for christmas so we managed to stock up on meat there a few days ago.

Aldi has recently been stocking more organic produce at very reasonable prices. The organic product in my shopping today

• Carrots
• Potatoes 
• Onions 
• Bananas 
• Broccoli 
• Apple sauce in tubes

We didn't need them today but aldi also has great prices on organic milk and eggs. To find out more on aldis organic range see this article.We try to buy as much organic produce as possible however there is a lack available in our area. Our local aldi also does local food such as Norfolk mushrooms. I wash all produce well once I'm home from the store so that we can grab it and go. I also wash anything with a skin such as lemons and limes in case there is any bacteria on the skin. 

Meal plan 5/1/2015

On Monday we will be starting our 100 days of real food mini pledges. Follow the link for more information. The first challenge is to have two fruit or vegetables portions with each meal.

For breakfast we have a mixture of Slow cooker porridge, yogurt with fruit and mini omelettes (blog post coming soon). I don't plan these as I tend to make a small batch at the beginning of the week and a batch about half way through.

For lunch my husband tends to eat leftovers or soup. While I like to cut up a selection of foods such as carrots, cucumber and apples with cheese and crackers.

Our dinner plans for this week are,

• Monday - tacos and salad
• Tuesday - stuffed peppers with leftover mince meat
• Wednesday - leftovers and soup
• Thursday - veggie omelette and soup
• Friday - chicken, pecan and feta salad 
• Saturday - veggie pancakes with leftover chicken
• Sunday - whole roasted chicken and frozen veggies

I will post some pictures throughout next week with how there turned out. Have you done a meal plan this week? Claire